refined
Americanadjective
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having or showing well-bred feeling, taste, etc..
refined people.
-
freed or free from coarseness, vulgarity, etc..
refined taste.
-
freed from impurities.
refined sugar.
- Synonyms:
- distilled
-
very subtle, precise, or exact.
refined distinctions.
adjective
-
not coarse or vulgar; genteel, elegant, or polite
-
subtle; discriminating
-
freed from impurities; purified
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of refined
Explanation
Something that's refined has gone through a process to remove impurities. An oil refinery removes impurities from oil. When a person's refined, they have good manners and good taste. A stereotypically refined lady will drink tea every day at four in the afternoon, lift her pinky while drinking, and select only refined (pure white, not raw) sugar as a sweetener. Someone with a refined taste in art has learned how to make judgments about what is good and what they like.
Vocabulary lists containing refined
The Diary of Anne Frank
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Chains
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A Streetcar Named Desire
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
No dichotomy better represents Berlant’s razor-sharp, thoroughly tasteful wit, which sits halfway between refined humorist and go-for-broke court jester.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
Prices of refined petroleum products remain between 70 and 95 percent above pre-war levels, putting pressure on countries dependent on energy imports for economic activity.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026
Putin echoed Trump’s statement, saying Moscow “reaffirmed its readiness to supply oil and refined products to the American and global markets.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
“If this hurricane ends up causing refinery flooding, it would exacerbate an already tight market for refined products, further pushing up prices at the pump,” Molchanov told MarketWatch.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, another astrologer-monk, Johannes Kepler, refined Copernicus’s theory, making it even more accurate than the Ptolemaic system.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
